European Databases | Austrian Legal Information System

The Legal Information System of the Republic of Austria (Rechtsinformationssystem – RIS) provides information on Austrian law to the public.

• The Legal Information System (RIS) is a database, which gives access to Austrian federal and state legislation, law gazettes and case law.
• With the electronic publication of the law gazettes in the database, the law officially becomes legally binding. This rule applies to federal law since 2004 and to state law since 2014/15.
• The database is coordinated and operated by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs.
• The RIS was developed in 1983. In the beginning it was only available for the public administration. Since 1997 it is available on the internet free of charge, making the database accessible for everyone.


• The database offers access to a variety of different legal texts.
• The RIS provides Federal Law from the 1990s onward. Older Federal Law, back to the 18^th century can be found on the database ALEX of the Austrian National Library. In the consolidated version new amendments are immediately incorporated in the final text. However, this version is not authentic and no liability is accepted for its correctness.
• Next to Federal Law, the database also offers access to State Law, where authentic law gazettes since 2014/2015 are uploaded and older non-authentic ones since 1949 are shown.
• Furthermore, the database provides judicature of the highest courts of Austria. This includes, all decisions of the Constitutional Court since 1980 and the Administrative Court since 1990, as well as selected decisions of the Federal Supreme Court and others.

• All documents are available in html-, PDF- and Word-Format. The law gazettes are shown as signed PDF. Only documents in this format are legally binding.
• The website offers a regularly updated list of Austrian laws in English.
• The database is also accessible via app – RIS:App – providing a mobile version for iOS and Android.